Duels on Cylon
The Duels on Cylon were a series of fights that took place during and after the Battle of Cylon in which Darth Trayus fought several opponents to secure his domination of the government. This culminated in an unexpected battle between himself and the leader of the Cult of Shadow, Sivter. Although Sivter defeated Trayus, he allowed the Sith Lord to live and the two forged an uneasy alliance for the purposes of destroying their mutual enemy, the Sith Empire. Darth Trayus vs Bane In order to bring the Battle of Cylon to an effective end, Trayus knew that he needed to defeat the Cylon leader, K471, who was holed up in the central computer core. In the midst of the battle, Trayus used the Shadow Hunter to land a small force, including himself, upon the surface of Cylon. It didn’t take long before he ran into one of the Imperium’s generals, a Gen’Dai mercenary known as Bane. Belonging to a species known for its extreme resilience, Bane would have been a challenge to anyone, and indeed proved able to land a few blows upon Trayus, but the Sith Lord had some advantages of his own. Aside from access to the Dark Side of the Force, Trayus also wielded a special sword known as Soulblade, which had the ability to drain the lifeforce out of whomever it cut. Once Trayus was able to cleave into Bane and the Gen’Dai realized the sword prevented him from regenerating, the duel was effectively over. Instead of killing Bane, however, Trayus offered the mercenary a chance to serve him instead. Bane accepted, knowing that he could never defeat Trayus as long as the Sith Lord wielded Soulblade. Darth Trayus vs Kir Varrus As Trayus proceeded further towards the computer core, he was kept abreast of the Imperium's movements thanks to Bane's sources, who identified the next obstacle to stand in Trayus' way: a Mandalorian cyborg known as Kir Varrus. Varrus was also a general in the Imperium and had been bonded inseparably to a Cylon created suit of power armor. The suit had many abilities and was lightsaber-resistant. Furthermore, Varrus, being a Mandalorian, was well-versed in combat. He stayed well out of range of Trayus' sword and kept moving and attacking at range so it was difficult for Trayus to use the Force against him. The greatest asset the Sith Lord had in this duel was the fact that he understood how Mandalorians thought and battled, having led them in his former life as Cadden Blackthorne. As the two exchanged attacks, Trayus worked on sowing doubt into Varrus' loyalties to K471. This allowed him to get close enough to land a blow to the stomach, amplified through the Force, that Varrus could feel through his armor. It brought the Mandalorian down and forced a break in the fight. Although Varrus was still capable of battling, Trayus' persuasive words about glory and honor were having an effect. After some deliberation, he renounced his loyalty to K471 and pledged it to Trayus instead. With the Mandalorian now on his side, nothing remained to prevent Trayus from facing off against the leader of the Cylon Imperium: K471. Darth Trayus vs K471 With two of his most skilled generals swayed to the side of Darth Trayus, K471 sent his best warriors to try and prevent the Sith Lord from proceeding any further. However, Trayus allowed his new allies to fight for him instead in order to conserve his power for his eventual confrontation with K471. Strong fighters like Titan and Artanis were defeated and destroyed since their loyalties to K471 were without question. The final obstacle was Aayla Shar, the last of the Imperium’s great generals, who was soundly defeated by Kir Varrus on Trayus’ behalf. With no one else to stand against Darth Trayus, K471 was forced to confront the Sith Lord himself in the central core. The battle seemed to go quickly, with Trayus severing the droid to pieces before K471 could make a move. This proved to be ineffectual since the droid leader demonstrated the ability to quickly come back in a duplicate body. Hitting upon a strategy to hand down a final defeat to K471, Trayus made his way deeper into the central core where K471’s personality was stored. K471 tried, and failed, to defeat Darth Trayus three more times, and in each attempt had his body destroyed by the Sith Lord. It was a battle that could have conceivably gone on forever, and seemed to favor K471 since he would never grow exhausted, but Trayus had been working towards the area where K471's personality was stored and the place where the Cylon leader was downloaded into every copy body he made. After defeating the latest version of K471 to challenge him, Trayus was able to quickly download the core version of K471 and then destroy the computer that had housed it. When what would ultimately be K471's last body was brought down low by Darth Trayus, the Sith Lord gave an ultimatum: surrender and serve him or face true oblivion. Faced with such a choice, K471 made the only logical decision: he supplicated. With his surrender, the Battle of Cylon was ended and the Cylon Imperium was officially conquered. However, there would be one duel yet for Darth Trayus before the day was over; one that would be more important to him than even defeating K471... Darth Trayus vs Sivter Sivter of the Cult of Shadow had become aware of Darth Trayus, and the threat he posed, and had secretly taken control of a Cylon fleet in order to challenge the Sith Lord. Through means both treacherous and wicked, Sivter had been able to neutralize Trayus’ fleet above so that he could face Trayus without interference. With him he took only the Dark Lord Crix to clear any obstacles Trayus might place before him. It turned out to be a wise precaution. Although Trayus didn’t seriously expect any of the forces he sent against Sivter to be able to destroy a Darksider of his power, he had hoped to be able to observe Sivter’s techniques and be better prepared for the duel to come. Sivter, predicting that Trayus would try such a thing, allowed Crix to handle all of the fighting on the way to the central core, thus robbing Trayus of any advantage he might have gleaned. This even backfired on Trayus when he sent two of his followers as a last-ditch attempt to force Sivter’s hand. Crix not only defeated them with ease, but left one alive at Sivter’s command so he could scour the follower’s mind for information as to Trayus’ true identity. Thus it was that Darth Trayus ended up facing an opponent who could truly challenge him. With his major advantages denied to him, Trayus attempted to utilize the last one he might have left: surprise. As soon as Sivter entered the main chamber, Trayus attacked without warning or remark. The ever-cautious Defel was ready for such a tactic however, and parried the attack without apparent difficulty. They continued to trade blows until it was obvious to Trayus that this duel wouldn't be as easy for him as the others he'd faced. Here was an opponent who had no trouble matching him for power or guile and wouldn't be swayed to join the cause. Not that Trayus ever planned to try and convince Sivter to join him. All he cared about was the Defel's death. Sivter, for his part, was content to toy with the Sith Lord until he came to a decision as whether he would allow Darth Trayus to live through the encounter or not. He kept his power restrained, using just enough of it to match Trayus throughout the duel. While it was true that Trayus had openly vowed to kill him, it was far from the first death threat he'd ever received. Moreover, Sivter saw potential within the Sith Lord and soon recognized that Darth Trayus was truthfully no longer Cadden Blackthorne as his soul had merged with another. One of Sivter's own goals was to encourage the spread of the Dark Side, so he only intended to kill Trayus if it was clear he would be too much trouble to permit to live. Although Sivter was unable to make Trayus see the emptiness of his words of revenge against him, he was eventually convinced that the part of the soul that was still Cadden was no longer in control, even if it believed it was. Sure that the other, more powerful soul, would guide Trayus to serve its own ends, Sivter decided to end the duel with a powerful blast of Force Lightning. Trayus, unprepared for the way Sivter was able to control his lightning, was struck down as it hit him in a weak spot. With Trayus at his mercy, Sivter offered him a choice: he could either help him take down their mutual foe of the Sith Empire, or he could be destroyed. Faced with the same choices he had given his other opponents, Trayus picked the same option they had: he chose to live. With that decision, he and Sivter formed an informal alliance. In exchange for his life, Trayus was tasked with continuing his work of empire-building as long as it didn't interfere with Cult of Shadow business. Sivter would contact Trayus again when the time came. The Defel then left with a promise that when Darth Trayus came to try and kill him, there would be no holding back. Only one of them would survive that duel. Trayus also had his own promise for Sivter - that he would personally pierce the Defel's heart with the use of his blade, a proclomation that Sivter did not stick around to hear. As per their arrangements, the Defel took the Byyor Command, as a good faith measure agreed upon by both Darksiders, and left the ruined Cylon Imperium to Trayus. =Thread= *Dawn of Darkness Category:Sith BrotherhoodCategory:Crimson EmpireCategory:Cult of ShadowCategory:CaddenCategory:Halomek